THE PLUMS OF NEW YORK. 45 



roundish-obovate, sharply and distinctly serrated, glabrous or upon the ribs on the 

 under side sparsely pubescent. Flowers usually in pairs, opening before or with the leaves, 

 greenish-white, pedicels about the length of the calyx-cups. Fruit yellow, agreeable. 



The writer has seen only herbaritim specimens of this plant and has 

 taken the description given from European texts. According to Schneider 

 the species has been divided into two varieties by the Italian bota- 

 nists. Prunus cocomilia typica having oblong-ovate fruit and Prunus 

 cocomilia hrutia having round fruit. Schneider holds also that Prunus 

 pseudoarmeniaca Heldr. and Sart.' from Epirus and Thessaly is a variety 

 of Prunus cocomilia differing chiefly in having more pointed leaves and 

 smaller oblong-rotmdish red plums. The same author puts in this species 

 still another plum, a hairy -leaved form from Thessaly which he calls Prunus 

 cocomilia puherula. He places here also Prunus ursina Kotschy' which 

 differs only in minor respects from the species, chiefly in having violet -red 

 fruit though Boissier ' mentions a yellow-fruited plum which he calls Prunus 

 ursina flava. The last named plums come from Lebanon and North Syria. 



6. PRUNUS CERASIFERA Ehrhart * 



I. Ehrhart Beitr. Nat. 4:17. 1789. 2. Hooker Brit. Fl. 220. 1830. 3. Koch, K. Dend. 1:97. 

 1869. 4. Koch, W. Syn. Deut. und Schw. Fl. 1:727. 1892. 5. Bailey Cornell Sta. Bui. 38: 

 66. 1892. 6. Schneider Handb. Laubh. 1:632. 1892. 7. Schwarz Forst. Bot. 339. 1892. 8. 

 Dippel Handb. Laubh. 1:633. 1893. 



P. domestica myrobalan. 9. Linnaeus S^. PZ. 475. 1753. 10. Seringe I?C. Prodr. 2:538. 1825. 



P. myrobalan. 11. Loisleur Nouv. Duham. 5:184. 1812. 12. Koehne Deut, Dend. 316. 1893. 



Tree small or a tree-like shrub, seldom exceeding twenty-five feet in height; branches 

 upright, slender, twiggy, unarmed or sometimes thorny; branchlets soon glabrous, 

 becoming yellow or chestnut-brown; lenticels few, small, orange in color, raised. 



Winter-buds small, obtuse, short-pointed, pale reddish-brown; leaves small, short- 

 ovate, apex acute, base cuneate or rounded, thin, membranaceous, texture firm, light 

 green, nearly glabrous on both surfaces at maturity, though hairy along the rib on the 

 lower surface, margins finely and closely serrate; petiole one-half or three-quarters 

 of an inch long, slender, usually glabrous, glandless. 



Flowers large, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, expanding very early or mostly 

 with the leaves; calyx-lobes lanceolate, glandular, reflexed; petals white, sometimes 

 with a blush, ovate-oblong or orbicular, the base contracted into a claw; borne 

 singly, sometimes in pairs, in cymes on long, slender, glabrous peduncles. 



^ Boiss. Diag. 2nd Ser. 96. 1856. 

 ' Verh. Zool. Bot. Ges. Wien. 435. 1864. 

 ^ Flor. Or. 11: 625. 1872. 



* In pre-Linnaean literature Prunus cerasifera is mentioned by Clusius as Prunus myrobalanus 

 (Rar. Plant. Hist. 46 fig. 1601), and by Toumefort under the same name [Inst. Rei Herb. 622. 1 700 ). 



